Information:
Bill Blunk (Joliet Central HS,
retired)
Original Tom Lehrer Songs
Using his laptop Bill played some of Tom Lehrer's
math songs from an original 1951 wire recording. These
songs can be obtained from these websites:
Thanks, Bill.
Bud Schultz (Aurora Middle
School)
Ancient Matches
Bud started talking about temperature, a topic he covers in his
various science classes (see also his handout). Bud's students
often ask why we define and measure temperature the way we do. When
posed with this question Bud has the students do a thought
experiment with a balloon: as it is cooled in a freezer, it shrinks; as
it warms up again it gets bigger. This correlates with a decrease and
then an
increase in the kinetic energy of tje air molecules in the balloon. He
found
that one experiment particularly excited the interest of his students:
the "Fire
Piston" (as Earl pointed out, is also known as a Fire
syringe). (See the website http://www.onagocag.com/piston.html).
American Educational Products LLC also sells a great version of
it: http://www.shnta.com/Product/Science/3572.htm
. The fire piston is really an ancient device, but Bud
showed us
his newer version:. a glass, cylindrical tube with its bottom end
closed off. As
we watched, Bud placed a small (dime sized) piece toilet tissue
in the
bottom of the tube. He then held up a rod (about 25 cm
long) with a
piston at its end. The piston was fitted with O-rings.
Holding the
rod, he slid the piston into the top of the tube. With the lights
dimmed,
Bud ran the piston down into the tube as hard and quickly as he
could. There
was a bright flash of light at the bottom of the tube! Amazing! We
then could see that the tissue had ignited and burned. By rapidly
(and
adiabatically) compressing the air in the tube, the air temperature was
raised
high enough to ignite -- reminding us of Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit
451. Bud told us that this really galvanized his
students to ask
a lot of questions, and take a real interest in trying to understand
how it
works. Thanks, Bud!
Larry Alofs (Kenwood HS,
retired)
LED's, etc.
Larry handed out copies of a Bill Amend classic "Foxtrot"
comic
strip from November 6, 2005, in which
Jason presented a numerical word search (or nerdsearch):
http://www.livejournal.com/community/comic_foxtrot/66515.html?mode=reply.
The clues were various terms, integrals, derivatives, sums, etc. One of
the questions involved
the sum of squares of the first 47 integers, which is a
special case of the
expression
Larry showed us some LED flashlights, a type of flashlight for which he is an enthusiastic proponent. White LED's need enough cells to provide more than 3.5 Volts (eg, three individual cells are required). Larry then showed a flashlight with a white LED that works with a single cell (1.5 volts). So how do they get the voltage high enough to run the flashlight?! Larry was not sure, but one possibility is a Voltage Multiplier circuit (see http://www.voltagemultipliers.com/html/multcircuit.html), which uses capacitors and diodes in series. Larry made an analogy with the movement of water up a pipe against gravity (increasing its potential energy) using one-way valves separating segments of a pipe and a device that can simultaneously squeeze a section of the pipe and expand the section of the pipe just above the squeezed section. Very slick! Thanks, Larry!
Brenda Daniel (Fuller
School)
Fire Safety
Brenda had a handout (from the Chicago Sun Times Nov 18,
2005) for us which she passed out to begin her presentation. The
handout came from free Sun Times copies given out to 4th graders in
Brenda's class. Both the
Chicago Sun-Times (on Tuesdays) and the Chicago Tribune
(on Mondays) provide
free papers to students, which often contain useful/interesting
articles on science. The newspaper article covered general topics in
fire safety, topics relating fire safety and electricity, and safety
activities for home and school, and provided a quiz for the students to
take to test their fire safety knowledge. Brenda's class also
had a visit from firemen who demonstrated an infrared detecting
device, which, by detecting body heat, helps the firemen find trapped
victims in a fire. Neat! Thanks, Brenda.
Ed Scanlon (Morgan Park HS,
biology)
Evolution
Ed started with the following handout:
Don Kanner (Lane Tech HS,
physics)
Any Questions?
Don showed a strategy for getting class participation. He
handed out
a card to each student. When students asked a question or gave an
answer
(after being called on), he stamped their cards. At the end of
class, the
students put their names on their card, and Don collected
them. Each
stamp on the card was worth extra credit on a future examination.
Students
quickly took an interest in class discussion. Don
illustrated the
strategy using two balloons containing Helium gas. We
asked the
following questions:
Khara Criswell (Juarez Community
Academy) Music
Khara brought a small boom box and a long list of "Songs for the
Science Classroom", such as "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash.
Every time
Khara does a lab she brings in a CD mix
with music/songs that relate to the experiment (e.g., in chemistry,
physics, etc.). For "Black Magic Woman" by Santana, Khara
has an activity in which there is a mix of chemicals that turn from
white to black and finally to purple.
Khara recommended these websites:
Chemistry Songs: http://www.delta.edu/slime/chemsongs.html and http://www.delta.edu/slime/chemsongs.htmlNeato! Thanks, Khara!
Physics Songs: http://www.haverford.edu/physics/songs/
Ann Brandon (Joliet West HS,
retired)
Strange Temperatures on Shipboard
Ann recently made a voyage through the Panama Canal, on
which there
were daily weather reports. She was struck by some of the
temperatures: 57 °C = 14 °F and 69 °C = 20 °F.
Very
strange temperatures --- even for the tropics! Thanks, Ann.
The following people could not present lessons today, because we ran out of time. They will be scheduled first at our next SMILE meeting, Tuesday November 29. See you there!
Notes prepared by Ben Stark and Porter Johnson.